Evangelion: Symphonic Apocrypha
by Grieving Nocturne
Summary: Third Impact has come to pass. Having rejected Instrumentality, Ikari Shinji and Soryu/Shikinami Asuka Langley remain among a fallen world. Lingering on the edge between being and nothingness, Shinji's consciousness shifts between a series of possible realities. In each potential existence, Shinji and Asuka explore varying reflections of their relationship.
1. Prologue: After Impact

**PROLOGUE: After Impact**

After Impact it was empty.

Just a spilling, constant red lapping up the cracked and barren slabs of remaining earth.

And wind. A howling, aching wind.

That was the first thing he felt on his fingers. Wind. It was dry.

Ikari Shinji felt his mind solidify. He felt a pinpoint sensation that told him he had blood and skin and fingernails and a dry, rolling wind sliding between them.

He clenched his fingers into his right palm, relaxed them, and repeated the motion. His joints were sore at the knuckle.

When he remembered that he possessed eyelids, he cracked them slowly open, taking in the sharp light until his pupils adjusted.

The sight was at once unreal, cathartic, reaffirming, and nauseating.

The ugly panorama of the end of the world filled his vision. The afterbirth of Third Impact. The little scraps of dirt and earth that Shinji childishly refused to set free into the sweeping waters of Instrumentality. He stared out into the blunt, limited palette of the apocalypse, the ruddy shades of red, brown, off-black, and bleached white.

His eyes produced tears, but he wasn't crying. No, the response was less emotional and more physiological, more akin to an allergic reaction. The saltwater spilled out of his lids, but his face held no emotion.

A streaking line in the dead sky split the hanging moon. The blood waves rolled against the shore, providing the only piece of sound in what was essentially a vacuum.

Shinji squeezed his fingers again. He breathed in deep and watched his chest expand. Salt dried on his tongue. He exhaled through his nostrils. A pair of shadows stretched out from where he lay.

It occurred to him that he wasn't alone.

His eyes rolled around in his sockets, eventually fixating at the other body lying beside him. It was breathing. It was real. It was familiar and it was female.

Shinji crooked his neck toward the silent, half-bandaged form of Soryu Asuka Langley—or maybe it was Shikinami. Shinji was never sure.

Asuka's eyes were technically open, but no light escaped them. She remained unmoving, nose to the blackened sky, breathing in a shallow rhythm. From where he lay, Shinji could observe the cresting and falling of her breasts. The curved, red plating of her breastplates—still fastened to the tattered remains of her plugsuit—glittered as it reflected the moonlight.

From somewhere in his mind, Shinji heard a girl's voice. No one had actually spoken on the beach, but the words were near-deafening in his ears.

"Ehhhh?" a voice somewhere, somehow responded. "Is that what you like, then?"

Shinji rolled onto his side and buried his face behind his hands. His ribs hurt.

"Hentai!" the voice taunted him. "I knew you were looking at me!"

Shinji squeezed his eyelids together, so hard it felt like the skin would melt and fuse together. Gently, he slid his right hand outward across the hard earth until his outer two fingers brushed lightly against the skin of Asuka's hand.

The girl's shallow breathing changed up its rhythm, if only momentarily.

Behind closed eyes, Shinji breathed in stale air until it became water. Liquid flowed through his lungs, and with his conscious mind welcoming the shift, he again found his waking form submerged and suspended in endless LCL.

Maybe the tides shifted to match his constitution. His will. Life. Death. He wasn't even sure of the distinction lines that clarified one from the other anymore.

He didn't open his eyes, but he let himself feel the sway of the current around his body. He chose not to let his limbs dissolve again into the soup, but instead remain solid. He thought he might like the sensation, the play of the sinking weight of flesh stirred about by the flood and current.

Shinji sank deeper, as if clutched by the ankle, down into an undertow of his own design. He wondered if the LCL had Asuka as well. He wondered if she'd even make a choice.

The sway of voices and sensations spun around Ikari Shinji as he floated somewhere between all-feeling and nothingness.

"Well," taunted the voice in his mind. "If you like staring at me so much, I'll give you something to stare at."

Shinji floated along in sunken isolation. He bent and outstretched his fingers again. As he did, a thought struck.

Freedom or adherence. Acceptance or rejection. Contentment or contempt.

There was always a choice.

Ikari Shinji could stay in the world of Impact. He could will himself away to nothing.

Or maybe, just maybe, he could try to turn the wheel again.

The surge of LCL spun itself into a great foam. Shinji writhed and thrust his chin upward, choking for the first time on the liquid in the throat.

Maybe he could turn the wheel.

The thought was deafening. Though his eyes didn't open, his vision somehow grew blacker.

It was time to reset the rhythm _ **.**_


	2. Chapter 1: Channels--Static

**Chapter 1: Channels/Static**

"...g-gah!"

Shinji's lungs burned in his chest as his head broke the surface of the water. Coughing violently, he thrust out his arms and instinctively gripped onto the cool, slick…porcelain?

The coughing slowed to a wheeze. Shinji's eyes traced the water that surrounded him. There was no stain of sickening red, stretching out into eternity. Just a translucent pool reflecting the dull yellow of the overhead lights. Shinji shifted his bare knees, sending a line of ripples moving around him.

His fingers—Shinji noted—were pruning. The water was beading on his knuckles.

The wheezing subsided.

He was soaking in a bathtub. Shinji's memories of Third Impact—the empty horizon of red waters against black sky—melted and faded as new images and information were fed into his brain. A bathtub. A set of familiar walls. Tiled floor. A fogged-over mirror.

Third Impact started to fade like a dream. A very sharp and memorable dream, but a dream all the same. The apartment bathroom of Katsuragi Misato effortlessly took its place.

Muffled sounds of applause and laughter began to seep in from beyond the bathroom door. A television was on.

Shinji took a deep breath, rested his neck on the edge of the tub, and stared up at the ceiling. Immediately, he felt his face turn red with embarrassment.

 _Why does she always have to do that?_

Misato—Shinji's caretaker, supervisor, commanding officer—had left her mark.

Hanging down over the shower rod, directly over Shinji's head, was a scattered array of Misato's lingerie. It was a habit that made Shinji uncomfortable, but he had never voiced this feeling to her.

This was her home, Shinji had reasoned. It wasn't his place to criticize.

With that conclusion in mind, Shinji slumped down a little deeper into the tub and ran his eyes over the lingerie. There was a bra, frilly, wrapped in black lace, and bordered with small, red roses. Beside it was a matching thong, equally lacey and undeniably eye-grabbing.

Shinji turned over in the bath and pulled up the drain.

A few minutes later, the door to the bathroom slid open, and Shinji marched out, dressed for bed with a towel draped around his neck. He headed into the direction of the shared living space, toward the sharp sounds of the television.

Asuka was lying on the floor, on her back, with her head crooked to view whatever was being broadcast. She tapped her bare legs up and down in boredom against the thin carpet. She was also apparently dressed for bed, clad simply in a loose tank top and thin pair of shorts.

They were alone for the night, as Misato was out doing…whatever it is she does at this late hour. Sometimes she'd come home disheveled, early in the morning, complaining over stale breath how a late diagnostic test had segued into a post-work drinking session with NERV personnel and that she decided to stay "at a friend's place."

Or whatever.

Shinji gripped the towel and rubbed it against his eyes.

"What are you watching?" he asked, dropping onto the couch behind Asuka.

"A bunch of nothing," she responded, not looking up from the dull glow of the screen.

"If it's nothing, why don't you just shut it off?"

Asuka shrugged and switched channels again.

The final act of some light romance drama was wrapping up. A couple embraced onscreen as the credits began to roll. The male lead dipped his lover toward the camera, and Asuka exhaled through her nose as the actress tilted and arched her back.

"Hey Shinji," Asuka muttered. "Bet they're fake, huh?"

"Hmm?" Shinji replied, only half-paying attention.

"Don't you think they're fake?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Her breasts."  
Shinji almost fell of the couch.

"Wh- _what?!_ "

"I mean, look at them. They're too perfectly round, right?"

"I…um…I don't kn—"

"I think they look better when they're natural," Asuka interrupted. She rolled onto her stomach, hooked her thumbs under the straps of her tank top, and peered down her own shirt. When she looked back up, Shinji was intensely staring at absolutely anything else in the room.

Asuka frowned, cleared her throat, and again tilted her chest toward Shinji, lining up her collarbone like the targeting reticle in her Eva.

Again, Shinji avoided her, awkwardly darting his eyes back and forth and trying not to sweat.

"Hmph," Asuka eventually muttered, giving up and turning back to the television. "Maybe boys don't care about real bodies. Maybe you only like fake things."

 _You like Ayanami, after all._

"What?" Shinji blurted. Asuka hadn't spoken the previous sentence, at least not out loud. Yet somehow Shinji could hear it, whispered into his mind, in Asuka's distinctive cadence. He closed his eyes for a moment, and in his head, he could briefly hear the crashing of waves on a shore. The sound of rushing water tumbled after Asuka's voice in his mind, and for a half-moment, the foggy image of Third Impact began to reform behind his eyelids.

Shinji blinked hard, bringing his focus back to Misato's apartment.

"I said, maybe you only like fake things!" Asuka snapped. "Boys don't care if your chest is half plastic as long as it's bigger than your head!"

"That's…" Shinji stammered, "not…true…"

"So you don't like them big?" Asuka countered.

"I didn't say that!" Shinji defensively spat, balling a fist and sinking it into the couch. "But big doesn't mean fake, anyway! Obviously, Misato's aren't fake, and she's—"

He cut himself off once he realized what he was saying. Asuka was silent.

"That's not…" Shinji quickly clarified. "I mean, I wasn't saying…"

"I see," Asuka murmured, not bothering to look back at him. She grabbed the remote control and started flipping channels again. Shinji didn't bother to push the conversation further.

"Pathetic," she said.

"Eh?" Shinji replied, ready to jump onto the defensive again.

"There's nothing on but these stupid dramas," she said, pointing to another couple kissing onscreen to the cheers of an unseen audience.

"They're popular, I guess."

"With stupid people," Asuka declared. "Look, her breasts are totally fake too."

Shinji sighed openly and scratched his ankle.

"You're probably supposed to be focusing on the love story, Asuka. Instead of the bodies."

"Tch," Asuka responded, repulsed at the thought. "That's ever faker than her chest."

Shinji rolled his eyes. Asuka tensely arched her back, as if somehow sensing his response.

To Shinji's surprise, the half-German girl leapt to her feet and marched to the couch. She stomped on the remote as she did, randomly flipping to a channel full of empty static. The snowing black and white poured out and filled the room, as did the white noise of its droning audio.

Asuka approached Shinji with a determined glare. She also seemed to be suppressing a blush that was seeping out into the corners of her cheeks anyway.

"W- _what?_ " Shinji angrily responded.

She just sat there for a moment, staring at him in either anger or embarrassment or maybe both. Who could tell?

Then, suddenly, she sat down.

Quietly, gently.

Onto the couch, but more importantly, onto his lap.

Shinji's eyes went wide. His mouth fell open, but no comment or protest came out.

Asuka still looked upset, even as she pressed her hips into his lap and spread her legs out over him.

"Shinji…" she finally said, remarkably calm and even-toned compared to her typical outbursts.

"Asu—" he began before she reached out and covered his mouth with her hand.

"Shut up," she said without anger, the words delivered as a request rather than an insult.

She removed her hand, now warm with his breath. He said nothing.

"Shinji," she repeated, "do you like my body?"

For emphasis, she turned over on his lap and pressed her chest against him. The act also forced the two to make direct eye contact.

Asuka could feel Shinji. She didn't tell him this directly, but she didn't have to. From the subtle change in her expression, the wrinkle of her nose, and the darting of her eyes, Shinji knew. She was responding to the clammy heat of his skin, the push of his beating heart against hers. In a fleeting moment of panic, he wondered if she would notice a different sort of physiological response in his lower anatomy. But if she did, she either ignored it or was too uncomfortable to say, as she just focused on his eyes and awaited the answer to her question.

The roar of television static seemed to climb in volume, despite no one interacting with the set.

Shinji stared long into the deep, all-swallowing blue of Asuka's eyes. He pivoted his weight underneath her and Asuka, perhaps fearing an attempt to flee, responded by sliding her body upward and locking their frames together. As she moved into position, Shinji's hands naturally slid up her thin and pale arms. He clutched her just above the elbows and held on tight. Asuka shivered and squirmed a little, but refused to move away. Throughout it all, she seemed almost solely concerned on keeping her breasts pressed to him.

"Do…you…" she whispered once again, "…like… _my_ …body?"

Suddenly, Shinji's brow furrowed. As Asuka's question rolled through his brain, something very unexpected tugged at his conscious mind. Something very sharp and bright and tied to Asuka's words, like a snaking trail of exhaust behind a jet engine.

"Asuka…" he eventually breathed as the scene fell frozen into a tableau, "…we've…" His words trailed off.

Asuka cocked her head in confusion.

"We've _what?_ " she responded.

Shinji didn't know how else to say it, so he just said it.

"We've done this before."

"Ehhhh?!"

Asuka sat straight up on his lap and crossed her arms.

"Done _this?!_ " she exclaimed, her face beet red. "When?! Have you been sneaking into my room when I'm asleep?!"

"Asuka—"

"Have you been crawling around on top of me?! Feeling me up?! Is that what you like then?! Hentai! I knew you were looking at me!"

"Asuka, that's not what I'm talking about!"

The girl stopped and stuck out her lower lip in annoyance. Shinji continued.

"I…can't really explain it, but…I mean…We've done this before. This scene. This conversation."

"What are you talking about? Don't be weird."

"No," he continued, sliding up under Asuka a little and carefully touching her right hand. "Listen to me. We've done this. I think…a few times."

"You're not making sense."

"You ask me if I like your body. Which is a trick question. Sometimes I say no, and you call me boring, and then run off to your bedroom. Sometimes I say yes, and you call me a pervert, and then throw a pillow in my face. There's no way to win."

As he voiced that final thought, Asuka's face tilted away from him. Any expression she held was hidden by the hanging curtain of her bright red hair.

"Shinji?" she finally uttered.

"Yeah?"

"You take the fun out of everything. I'm going to bed."

With that, she pulled herself off of him, ran to her bedroom, and slammed the door.

Ikari Shinji exhaled, alone with the static.

Eventually, he got up, retrieved the remote from the carpet, and switched off the television.

The act felt incredibly lonely.

Not especially tired but with no further enthusiasm to stay awake, Shinji climbed into his bed. He wrestled with the sheets and his own restlessness until finally falling into a shallow sleep.

Hours passed. Half-fragments of scenes, not even solid enough to be considered dreams, came and went in his subconscious. His sleeping mind dulled, sifting through the images like old photographs he didn't recognize or remotely care about.

It was a restless sleep, yet still just deep enough that the opening of his door in the dead of night did not stir him.

Ikari Shinji did not awaken, in fact, when Asuka sleepily entered his room. Or when she dropped onto his bed. Or when she rolled beneath the covers beside him.

No, Ikari Shinji only woke when she wrapped her arms around him.

Shinji blinked as he snapped back to consciousness, both surprised at the intrusion and annoyed at being surprised, because this was something Asuka had done repeatedly in the past. Shinji sighed. He assumed the act was a childish one. Asuka had a habit of marching off in protest, only to later barge her way into his room for company, like he was some kind of security blanket or stuffed animal.

"Childish," he whispered, feeling her body squeeze onto him tightly. Shinji closed his eyes and tried to go back to sleep.

Asuka started stirring, clinging onto Shinji and rubbing her thighs together.

 _Great,_ Shinji thought to himself. _She's dreaming._

This was another habit of Asuka's, once she had taken over his sleeping space. Shinji had never pointed this out to her, but the girl was a very expressive dreamer, often talking in her sleep or wiggling around like she was now.

Shinji decided to ignore it, again closing his eyes.

Half an hour passed and Asuka started moving again, this time kicking Shinji in the back of his legs and moaning to herself as she dealt with some kind of obvious nightmare.

 _Don't wake up,_ Shinji's floating mind, teetering on the fragile edge of sleep and consciousness, told him. _Don't deal with it right now._

Asuka stopped kicking and started wrapping her legs around his, like a tree spreading its roots. Her moaning got louder.

Finally, Shinji resigned and rolled over to face Asuka in bed. Still half-asleep, he could scarcely tell the reality of the scene from the remainders of his dreams.

"Hey…" he mumbled, groggy, at the writhing Asuka. "Hey Asuka, wake up."

His nose was almost touching her neck. She took shallow breaths and kept moaning in the dark.

"As…uka…you're having a nightmare," Shinji uttered, starting to fall back asleep.

His arms felt like cement, but still he reached out to touch her, to stir her from her dreams. His hands fell upon her hips, which responded to his touch with light swaying and bobbing.

"…Shin…" Asuka responded, still asleep. Her demeanor calmed, but her body still wiggled in the bed.

"Yeah," Shinji whispered through heavy, narrow eyelids. "Yeah, you were having a ni— _MMPH!_ "

In the dead of her sleep, Asuka clutched wildly, protectively, onto Shinji. Her legs hooked hard around his, and pulled him close. At the same time, her arms wrapped tightly around his head, pressing his face deep into the ivory valley of her cleavage, which lay exposed at the sinking edge of the old tank top hanging from her form. Her breasts swelled with each breath, and Shinji felt himself sink into them as effortlessly as he had the seas of Instrumentality. His consciousness was graying, slipping again away from him, as Asuka held him tightly in this position. He mumbled something once to her about breathing and difficulty, but there was no urgency or fight behind his muffled words.

The last thing Shinji remembered hearing was Asuka giggling in her sleep.

"I knew you liked my body," she mumbled, clutching him tight.

Shinji felt himself again fall into blackness, and everything began to float.

Sleep.

Whether the sensation came from dream or death, Shinji didn't care. He let his body extend and float through the currents. He could see nothing, but felt the pushing pressure of heavy waters.

He wasn't actively swimming, Shinji realized. He was just not fighting the current.

The wash, the pull, the inky-black of the dark led Shinji spiraling through the depths. A dull, rhythmic thump bounced in his ears at timed intervals as he moved. With each thump, a spreading vibration seemed to shoot through his form.

 _What is that?_ Shinji wondered. _What am I feeling?_

A new voice suddenly spoke out to Shinji in the dark. It was masculine, older, but kind.

"Probably her heart," said the man. "I'm not just being sentimental, either. I mean, that's most likely her heartbeat, all things considered."

Despite the overwhelming current, Ikari Shinji opened his eyes.

"Kaji-san?" he whispered.

Light bombarded Shinji's eyes, and when his vision returned, he was standing on his feet, surrounded by sturdy land.

The scene had changed.

Shinji's body had again taken form, and he looked down at his hands.

They were stained with dirt.

Cicadas squealed in the distance. The air was hot. He was standing outside and the midday sun hung overhead.

Scanning the surroundings, Shinji realized the familiar spot. Tall grass rubbed up against the horizon line. Weeds and greens sprouted up between the deep, ruddy lines of brown earth.

And in the distance, the cold metal edifice of the GeoFront.

This was the garden of NERV.

Which meant…

"Hey," came a voice behind Shinji. "These things aren't gunna harvest themselves."

Shinji looked over his shoulder in amazement.

The tall man behind him was bending down to cradle a small, round watermelon, freshly cut from the vine. His face was hidden, but the rolled blue sleeves, messy ponytail, and red, wrinkled necktie slung over the shoulder told Shinji everything he needed to know.

"Kaji-san," Shinji repeated.

The man laughed, still tending to the melon.

"I'm serious," he cheerfully responded without looking up. "I don't have all day out here, you know. Sun'll set before we know it. Plus, I've got to get back to being dead."

Kaji Ryoji.

A friend.

Also a former triple agent, assassinated in the line of duty.

It had been so long since Shinji had spoken to him.

"I…um…" Shinji began. "I suppose you're going to tell me what I'm supposed to do now."

"Well, for starters, you can pick up that hose."

Shinji did as instructed, fetching a garden hose and watering the crops.

"That's not what I meant," Shinji mumbled.

"I know," Kaji responded.

The two worked in silence for a time, before Kaji again spoke.

"Shinji-kun, do you remember what I told you the last time we were out here?"

"Something about dying in the garden?"

"Was that the last time we were out here?"

"I don't know," Shinji sulked. "I honestly don't know. Lately memories have been more like a deck of cards. Fully-formed, but…"

"Easily shuffled into different order?"

"Yeah."

"So forget about the order. Do you remember being here?"

Shinji dropped the hose and scratched his head.

"Yeah. You told me this is where you wanted to die. You also made a joke about Misato's breasts, so if this is to make fun of me about what Asuka—"

"What this is about, Shinji-kun, is choice."

Kaji softly placed the watermelon in a nearby wooden cart and took a few steps toward the GeoFront. A razor-thin line of red appeared on his shirt and started trickling to the ground.

"Hey," Shinji responded, moving closer. "Kaji-san—"

"I couldn't see a better end to life than standing amongst these greens. But I chose something different."

The blood dripping from Kaji started to pool into the dirt. Shinji quickly moved toward him.

"In the end, we always choose, Shinji-kun. Each of us."

"Ka—"

Shinji's voice was interrupted by a sudden, crashing roar. It pierced his ears and shook him down to the bones.

Looking up in horror, Shinji witnessed a tsunami's worth of red arc up from over the GeoFront's walls, casting a bleak shadow over the garden.

Shinji's eyes rolled over to Kaji. The unshaven fool was standing still in the face of the wave, smiling with his hands stuffed deep into his pockets.

As the wave bent over their heads, Kaji smirked and began whistling a familiar song.

As the waters of Instrumentality collapsed upon the garden of NERV, Shinji could only hear five words escape from Kaji's mouth. The namesake of the tune he was whistling.

"Fly me to the moon…"

Everything was instantly liquid again, and Ikari Shinji was left without a conscious shape. Only the lingering persistence of self in his mind.

Waters rose higher, and as his essence again threatened to dissipate, Shinji's mind forced itself to attention.

In the swallowing sea, Shinji heard the roaring static of Katsuragi Misato's television. He heard Kaji Ryoji's mutterings on choice. He heard the warmth of Asuka Langley's heartbeat, framed between the lovely swell of her breasts.

"What are you watching?" he had asked Asuka.

"A bunch of nothing," she had said.

"If it's nothing, why don't you just shut it off?"

Asuka had shrugged and switched channels.

Maybe there wasn't an answer.

Maybe there didn't need to be one.

Shouting deeply into the abyss, Ikari Shinji forced flesh onto essence, muscle onto bone.

 _Another channel,_ he thought, careening toward the light.

"...g-gah!"

Shinji's lungs burned in his chest as his head broke the surface of the water. Coughing violently, he thrust out his arms and instinctively gripped onto the cool, slick porcelain.

The same bathtub. The same apartment. Another channel.

The muffled applause and laughter came singing again from Asuka's television program.

It was time to try again.


End file.
